Two viral claims were verified on Nobel laureate in chemistry

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, in 2015. -

• Frédérique Vidal, Minister of Higher Education and Research, would have “welcomed the ban in France some time ago” of technologies discovered by the Frenchwoman Emmanuelle Charpentier, Nobel Prize in chemistry, affirms a viral tweet.

• While the minister hailed "immense pride" for French research, a second Internet user recalled that the co-recipient of the prize has spent most of her career abroad.

• 20 Minutes

  looked into his two statements.

What support has the government given to the work of Emmanuelle Charpentier, awarded Wednesday, with the American Jennifer Doudna, by the Nobel Prize in chemistry?

While sending her congratulations to the Frenchwoman on Twitter, Frédérique Vidal, Minister of Higher Education and Research, was criticized for "having welcomed some time ago the ban in France of technologies resulting from this Nobel ”.

A second tweet recalled that "Emmanuelle Charpentier has spent her entire career abroad for twenty-five years", while the Minister qualified this prize "of immense pride for all of our research and for the French chemistry ”.

My sincere congratulations to Emmanuelle Charpentier who is awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Jennifer A. Doudna for their work on molecular scissors.

An immense pride for all of our #research and for French chemistry.

#NobelPrize

- Frédérique Vidal (@VidalFrederique) October 7, 2020

20 Minutes

sifted through these claims.

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Emmanuelle Charpentier, trained at Pierre and Marie Curie University and at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, stressed to our colleagues from France Télévisions in Berlin that she has "an international background".

The researcher left France for almost a quarter of a century.

She stresses that "France would find it difficult to give her the means that [she] has in Germany", where she works today.

🇩🇪🇫🇷 "I think that France would find it difficult to give me the means that Germany gives me".

👇 Meeting with Emmanuelle Charpentier, researcher at #Berlin, Nobel Prize in chemistry 2020. pic.twitter.com/zyOtBC6egz

- France TV Berlin (@FranceTVBerlin) October 8, 2020

The scientist worked in the United States, then in Austria and Sweden, before occupying several positions in Germany, according to the site of her laboratory.

In 2019, the minister "wanted to allow the use of [this] technique"

What about Frédérique Vidal's position on her research?

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were rewarded for their research on "molecular scissors".

The "ultimate goal" of this "revolutionary" technique, known under the name of CRISPR-Cas9, is to "correct human genetic diseases", explained the French scientist to AFP in 2016.

Heard by senators in December 2019 on the bioethics bill, the minister, a biochemist by training, was in favor of this new technique.

"We wish [...] to allow the use of the CRISPR-Cas9 genomic editing technique", she then explained to the senators.

However, the minister then set limits on its use.

In particular, it excluded the reimplantation of an embryo which would have been genetically modified.

"We had this debate in the National Assembly," she then reminded the senators.

Members were asking why we would deprive ourselves of the possibility of removing a dominant defective gene and allowing the copy of this non-defective gene to express itself, and therefore, potentially, to cure a disease, since we know the to do.

Our response was negative, as we do not wish to re-implant genetically modified embryos through genome editing.

"

Contacted by

, Frédéric Vidal's firm specifies that CRISPR-Cas9 “is not intended to be banned or authorized as such.

It is the purpose of use, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the methods of use - which take into account in particular the possibilities of possible dissemination of organisms whose genome has been modified - which are strictly regulated. by law ”.

The bioethics bill "does not speak directly of CRISPR-Cas9", confirms to

 the deputy LREM Jean-Louis Touraine, one of the rapporteurs of the bill to the National Assembly.

The researchers themselves were cautious about the research possibilities opened up by this new technique, recommending in 2016 to "proceed step by step".

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Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Who is Emmanuelle Charpentier, the French laureate?

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